By Brian Rock
Appalachian troubadour, Ian Noe returns on his third album, Canyon Falls Trailer Band. Or perhaps more accurately, Ian Noe conducts the fictional Canyon Falls Trailer Band. The story goes that this consortium of hardscrabble, self-taught musicians from rural Kentucky made only one public performance outside of their local holler. They hosted a Nashville showcase in the hopes of landing a life changing record deal. Sadly, Nashville passed and the band faded into local mythology. However, a recently discovered recording of their legendary Nashville showcase has preserved their musical stylings for future generations.
Although the band may be fictional, the music is as authentic as it gets. Drawing from his Appalachian roots, Noe and company lay down some serious backwoods country with a heavy dose of bluegrass. Like fellow Kentuckian, Ricky Skaggs, Noe reinvigorates classic country tones and tropes and creates a vibrant musical bridge between past and present.
The title song introduces the album, and the band, with high energy fiddle and Oak Ridge Boys style vocal harmonies. After listing his band mates and their eclectic instruments (including paint cans, barbed wire, and Marlboro boxes,) Noe sings, “I’m just trying to make a living, the only way I know.” He keeps the good time country music going with, “The Heidelburg Fisherman’s Ball;” a honky-tonk party song about using your best bait to lure a worthy partner. “Another Night Like This,” commemorates a wild, wonderful night that’s well worth the morning after headache. “Redneck Mess,” dreams of making it big, without getting above your raisin’. Noe also addresses life’s somber moments. Singing of heartbreak on, “She’s Familiar (in the Strangest Ways),” Noe can’t help but see his ex in every new lover. “Whiskey to Work,” acknowledges that in order to drown your sorrows, you have to let go of any hope of returning to the way things were. “Kentucky Hurricane,” is a doomed from the start love affair with a prostitute. Diving into pain deeper and darker than heartache, Noe confronts the ill effects of moonshine on both the buyer and seller on, “Dixie Speed.” “What I’d Give,” is a requiem for a loved one lost to addiction. “Jukebox Blues,” wrestles with the feeling of being trapped by circumstance. “Tobacco Moon,” is a haunting and hypnotic insight into the challenges of the independent farmer. Singing, “There’s too many ghosts on this farm,” Noe feels the pull of all the generations who have come before him and given their lives working the land. “Antarctica,” describes the lonely chill of isolation and desolation. “Bible County,” addresses despair on a community level; as children rebel against their parent’s traditions, leave home to find their own path, begin to miss home, then return to find a town in decay. “Leeann,” comes full circle, and somehow manages to find the silver lining of broken dreams. Returning empty handed from her attempt at stardom, Leeann is comforted by friends who remind her, “If the holler gets rough, just keep your head up. We’re glad you’re home.” Ian Noe portrays the good, the bad, and the ugly of rural living with tender insight. His characters are deep and nuanced and based on a lifetime of keen observation. His lyrics celebrate the struggles and the triumphs of the dreamers and the doers who soldier on in anonymity. His musical arrangements perfectly complement his storytelling. Each strum of a banjo or waver of a pedal steel note heightens the emotion of his lyrics. Noe is a master musician and storyteller who distills complex life experiences into musical parables. “Canyon Falls Trailer Band,” is a stunning and unflinching examination of the human psyche. As a coda to his Kentucky memoirs, Noe delivers a tongue-in-cheek imagining of what success might have looked like had The Canyon Falls Trailer Band ever made the big time on, “Kickin’ It In Nashville.” Going from “sweeping food courts at the airport,” to major label record deals, to falling off the charts, to addiction, and back to the reunion tour; Noe checks all the boxes of the life cycle of a successful country band. Funky syncopation and cosmic cowboy effects enhance the dream like quality, even as he faces the reality that, “just because you like to party, don’t make you George Jones.”
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Brian Rock
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